>Right at this moment, I would settle for a simple acknowledgement. Specifically, we have a speaker coming in the near future who will unquestionably draw a crowd much bigger than our present capacity. We would like to be able to use the local M$ facility for the eveneing as well as extend an invitation to the other user groups here in town.
>

There should be someone in your MS Sales District (Arizona is in the Southwest) who is in charge of Developer support/evangelism. Also try to find out who the manager is of the local office. If you don't have their number its (602) 280-8600. The Phoenix office web page is at http://www.microsoft.com/usa/offices/Phoenix.asp.
Marie Roqueni is a name that shows up on the site as someone doing developer presentations.

You just have to be persistant with them.

Also, you might try to ping Ken Levy to see if he can get you a contact in Phoenix.